Crowdsourcing in Interface Design: Impact, Benefits, and Challenges

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of crowdsourcing in the field of interface design. It begins by defining crowdsourcing and tracing its evolution, emphasizing the role of internet technologies and online communities. The report then explores the impact of crowdsourcing on interface design, particularly for smaller companies, and discusses both the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Key benefits highlighted include increased productivity, access to creativity, and reduced costs, while challenges such as managing project interest, evaluating code quality, and addressing legal and ethical issues are also examined. The report details the impact of crowdsourcing on project budgets and timelines. Finally, it offers insights into how to effectively engage online communities, assess skills, and ensure code quality. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and emphasizes the importance of considering both the opportunities and the potential pitfalls of crowdsourcing in interface design.

Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing in the Field of Interface Design
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Invention and Growth of Crowdsourcing..................................................................................5
Crowdsourcing Impact on Interface Design..............................................................................6
Benefits of Incorporating Crowdsourcing..................................................................................8
Challenges of Incorporating Crowdsourcing.............................................................................9
Generating Project Interest of Online Community..................................................................12
Skill and Quality of Code Evaluation......................................................................................13
Crowdsourcing impact on Budget and Timeline.....................................................................14
Legal, Societal, and Ethical Issues...........................................................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................17

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Introduction
Crowdsourcing is a method through which a specific crowd is engaged to achieve some
particular goal. The crowdsourcing activities are facilitated by the advanced technological
aspects present today, namely, social media, and web 2.0. There are various levels at which
crowdsourcing can be facilitated (Aitamurto et al, 2011). It can be facilitated at the individual
level by calling the individuals to join the particular to complete a task over a particular topic,
or it can be done at the industry level. The companies such as Apple and Microsoft can
engage the particular group of individuals together and make them work to complete a task.
Due to the facilities in connectivity, the crowdsourcing activities have received much
attention in contemporary situation.
There are millions of people who are connected to each other as online community and due to
the faster internet services and outreach, everyone is getting closer each day. This has become
a greater source in solving the problem at hand. It is quite interesting that the way one can
receive ideas to solve complex problems by simply asking to a large community which was
not accessible a decade ago (Alsever, 2007). This has allowed one asking questions to bigger
group of people and receiving answer in a systematized manner with no noise.
Crowdsourcing is all about taking the advantage of the resources that are available sitting far
off distance at the lowest cost possible. The use of the web to harness the lying huge
potential among the crowds is the best thing ever happened to the businesses at present. The
crowdsourcing is no different than the social media form. Only difference is the social media
is where people interact for fun or to fulfil purposes that do not generally direct relate to the
product sales and sales pitching, while there are crowdsourcing platforms that been

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specifically designed to facilitate the two parties meet together to complete certain project
without meeting in person.
Another difference in the social media formats and the crowdsourcing is that the
crowdsourcing activities are controlled by various laws and regulations such as copyright,
compensation, and others. If taken holistically then it can be stated that the crowdsourcing
provides access to the talent and ways to harness those talent which is not available through
the social media platforms.
The formal definition of the crowdsourcing will be to transfer the job responsibilities from
the traditional methods and from the known people to the unknown group of people.
There are three aspects in the crowdsourcing, namely, outsourcing, crowd, and internet
technologies.
Outsourcing: it is the basic form that states that the activities are transferred to the external
parties if the companies observe that the cost of developing the same element within the
company is going to cost more. Moreover, in most cases the tasks are outsourced outside
when the company lacks such talent to undertake those activities and there is no enough time
to hire talent.
Crowd: Here, the crowd refers to the group of people external to the organization. In
traditional form of outsourcing, the companies outsource activities to the particular individual
or company who undertake all the activities related to the project. However, in the new form
of outsourcing to the clouds, one task is divided into numerous people. The presence of
numerous talents in the online community makes it easier for the company to finish the
product well in time and with more influx of ideas instead of one or two.

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Internet Technologies: The advancement in the internet technologies can be stated as the
major contributor to the crowdsourcing activities. The internet has helped the companies
reach the individuals in large scale. Initially phase of internet development and growth never
led to the understanding that the growth in this field will be so rampant that the way business
conduct research and development will change.
This paper is concerned with understanding the various aspects of crowdsourcing and how it
will support in the development of interface design for individual client. The areas that have
been covered are the way crowdsourcing has grown in past few years and the benefits and
challenges of this aspect. Moreover, suggestions have been given to activate the online
community towards a project and evaluate the skills each of the individuals joining the team
has and the quality assessment of the code they have submitted.

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Invention and Growth of Crowdsourcing
The exponential growth has been observed in the case of utilization of crowdsourcing as the
tool to develop the interface designs. The fundamental reason behind the utilization of the
crowdsourcing is to access the collective intelligence of individuals who are sitting far from
the company and support in the business activities (Gonzales, 2010). These were the
activities that were previously were conducted within the company which has been brought
out to the public at large to access. This brings the power to the companies to access the
benefits of the external sources that could not have been possible otherwise.
The crowdsourcing is different from outsourcing in the manner that it uses the resources
which are available in a particular geographical area of the company. The companies that
have limited budget in their hand can amply access this technique and use its benefits. The
ideas are free-flowing which were not been able to be tapped due to the lack of the access.
However, after the advent of the internet the companies are able to access these with greater
ease and comfort. This method has helped the small companies as well as the larger ones. The
interface design and development in this manner has been possible only through the
development and growth in the internet.
There are multiple reasons why any individual engage in crowdsourcing and provide their
knowledge and support to the companies looking for external sources. Some of the reasons
are to get access to extra payment options, out of fun to get new challenges that they do not
find in everyday office jobs, to increase their reputation in the technology field, to interact
with other people who are similar to them, and others (Ambati & Vogel, 2010).
Crowdsourcing as a tool to work on a project from far distance has become an interesting tool
and its usability is gradually increasing day by day. The access of the companies to the wider

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diversified thinking capability has allowed the company increase their power exponentially
with minimum cost possible.
Crowdsourcing Impact on Interface Design
The crowdsourcing activities began with one thing in mind and that was to translate the
knowledge floating outside that was not within the reach of the companies earlier. In the
initial stage it was simply training and evaluation data for SMT. SMT stands for statistical
machine translation. As for example, the development of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk which
was extensive data set with two languages was build using the SMT in the manner which was
cheapest and fast (Buhrmester et al, 2011). Through the growth in the technologies, this
aspect entered into the interface design and development. Though one cannot state there is no
negative aspect of this. There are positive as well as negative aspects for this method.
As stated earlier, the major impact of the crowdsourcing has been on the smaller and start-up
companies (Howe, 2006). These companies do not carry lots of budget in the beginning for
the research and development for particular project such as logo designing and developing
ideas for the website designs. The crowdsourcing has been proved as the boon for these
companies who can complete such things with the minimum cost possible.
The major purpose behind the crowdsourcing has been to invite the external community that
is wide through posting the requirements on the online forums that are designated specifically
for the developers or the graphic artists. The postings attract attention of these people and
facilitate the development. Most of the times, the individuals on these forums solve queries
without needing any kind of compensation. They do this just out of interest and curiosity and
to increase their reputation or ranking in the particular forum or online community.

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In some cases, money placed as rewards and not as the compensation for doing the attract
which acts as the major attraction centre as it calls the competitive minds to take part in such
realistic simulation and win prizes. This gives the companies opportunity to sort between
hundreds of ideas at one at the cost of one (Brabham, 2008). Such incentives encourage the
individuals to take part in such activities and it not only attract the existing players but the
new ones also who never entered such game before.
The impact of the crowdsourcing on activities like interface designs are immeasurable.
However, there are some instances where the inclusions of some external players in the
existing designing games pose greater competition to the current players. But as the major
purpose to gain the ideas and benefits from the client side, so it becomes a better opportunity.
The major impact of this tool is that the companies that were unable to utilize such talent
even by conducting extensive hiring on daily basis and providing them training, through
crowdsourcing, now they are able to enjoy the benefit just like a customer receiving the
finished product while paying just for the product and nothing else. In this method, it can be
stated that the companies have been positively impacted due to the access of so many ideas at
minimum cost possible and sometimes at no cost.
In most cases, the individual joining the crowdsourcing activities are able to gain recognition
and tries to involve more in such activities. The impacts of crowdsourcing on the interface
designs have been negative as well as positive. The next chapter discusses the benefits of the
incorporation of crowdsourcing activities and the next chapter of this one discusses the
challenges in outsourcing activities.

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Benefits of Incorporating Crowdsourcing
There are multiple benefits of incorporating crowdsourcing activities in the design of the
interface. Some of these benefits are increase in the productivity, access to creativity,
minimization of labour cost, and extensive reduction in the research expenses. It is
established now that the internet is the major facilitator of the crowdsourcing activities. One
of the interesting aspects is that not only crowdsourcing facilitates interface designing
activities, but it also acts as the major source of customers who provide feedback on multiple
things. This feedback collection could have taken days or months of the company effort and
time along with the budget, whereas with the use of crowdsourcing, the company is able to
access that feedback within shortest time possible and at bare minimum cost.
Moreover, due to the involvement of the large pool of individuals for the feedback reduces
the major efforts of the companies that were invested in the other functions such as
marketing, brand building, and development of the products (Doan et al, 2011). It also
extensively reduces the need for the staffs and associated risks.
Mentioned below are some of the benefits in detail:
Infrastructure: The crowdsourcing activities do not require major access to infrastructure.
The presence of computer and access to the internet is considered enough to facilitate this
activity in the interface design. Moreover, due to the ease of access to the technologies, the
companies are better able to conduct the crowdsourcing activities. The communication with
the individuals sitting far off has become easier. The reduction of the cost on the
infrastructure is substantial and the companies do not need to allocate particular space within
the company for the research and development activities.

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Vision: The crowdsourcing activities have helped the companies properly work on their
vision and move towards the company objectives effectively.
Human Capital: The expenditure on the human capital has reduced with the ability to access
the far better talent in the market that could not have been possible while bringing in few
from the market.
Financial Capital: The reduction in the financial expenses is major benefits that the
companies can observe. As stated earlier, the crowdsourcing activities require minimum cost
and effort and the market provides best of the ideas for the interface designs. This has
significantly reduced the financial expenditure and saved capitals to a larger extent.
Challenges of Incorporating Crowdsourcing
Along with the benefits of incorporating crowdsourcing, there are also some challenges that
have been observed in this activity. Some of the challenges are the involvement of the costs
in the idea screening, management of the huge crowdsourcing activities, and the
determination of whether particular brought in idea is a success.
It is a matter of decision that to work on an idea, whether the companies should engage in the
crowdsourcing or the in-house development would be beneficial. The decision to bring in the
idea from the external individuals can be an easy source (Estellés- Arolas et al, 2012).
However, the major challenge comes when the particular idea is to be screened for viability
and reliability. Therefore, if the companies want to outsource the ideas then it would have to
be look for individuals who have credentials in such activities so that it does not receive
cheap ideas that will waste the effort of the company and bring in no result after extraneous
screening process.

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The third challenging aspect is the determination of whether the particular idea is a success.
There are numerous individuals who generally engage in crowdsourcing activities. However,
in some cases it is possible that the company do not need huge influx of ideas and only
certain one or two idea will be enough.
Moreover, one of the challenging aspects is the collaborating with all the workers within the
crowd sourcing environment. If the company do not have proper infrastructure to facilitate
the communication, then it will be a huge challenge in handing the activities properly and
might be possible that the crowd made something which was not required by the company
(Leimeister et al, 2009). It will become a total waste of time, effort, and whatever money
spent on that activity.
Further, the crowdsourcing can develop the virtual community, involve the public and
develop the large database of the knowledge about the culture and the science. Furthermore,
the history pin is the most fascinating database of the images of the history along with the
dates, captions, metadata and the locations. It is being known as the history pin as the photos
are being pinned on the map. Also, some of the locations have the images through the various
dates, demonstrating that how the place is being transformed over time.
It can be ungrateful in order to contribute to the site of outsourcing so that the successful
projects offer the wider community and the context. Further are the some examples of the
good practices. It is important for the strategy to have the themes as compared to the generic
task, a theme strait the score more frequently. These themes are also used by the site of the
DIY history where the volunteers have hired in order to transcribe the handwritten pages of
the given stories of the soldiers of the civil war and the stories about their families i.e. 37,500.
The other themes were like the lives of women, cooking books and the railroad baron’s
machinations. On the site of the DIY history, there is a great collection which is being

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organized into the themes. Moreover, the narrow themes develops the achievable and the
manageable workload, offering, great satisfaction to the volunteers and also offsetting the
transcription of drudgery.
It has been said that the projects might have the robust which will make the technology easy
to use so that the volunteers can participate in it easily. According to the principles of
gamefication, it is important to keep it satisfactory and fun which will include various
challenges and the opportunities as the sense of accomplishment. Further, it has been
observed that the history pin is not expanding exponentially and it is not viral at all. Various
theories has been used in order to explain it more deeply. Firstly, failure to tap the nerve
which means that most of the people take the responsibility in order to stick the images pins
on the map even if the projects are relied on the themes. There are various ideas which
doesn’t stick. Secondly, monolingual, the history pin tries to have a community at the global
level and the site is English exclusively. Further, it is not difficult to translate the interface of
the user.
Thirdly, closed system, there is not such a way in order to explore the content, linking it to
the other system and further they did not influence the way or method for the institutions in
order to use the site on their backend. Lastly, bugs, the technology on the site of the history
pin is very much polished and slick but the action in order to browse the images on the map is
awkward and buggy unless the photo is zoomed. Further, the mobile app is being criticized
by various users for being inadequate and the buggy.